


Of Christmas Past

by BlueKiwi



Category: Dresden Files - All Media Types, Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/608029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueKiwi/pseuds/BlueKiwi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Turn Coat. Everyone has their demons. Thomas receives a little encouragement to help face his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Christmas Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LyraNgalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/gifts).



> AN: This is a Christmas-themed companion piece to "Lead Us Not Into Temptation".

The very first night it happens, a week before Christmas, he passes it off as a dream.

He thinks that it’s pleasant compared to the nightmares that have ravaged his mind for the past several months, sickening memories twisting into the form of dreams, black and desperate and _cold_. Every night seems to bring a different sort of hollowness to his mind, to his heart, and the Hunger growls in satisfaction as little by little, the bars of its cage slowly chip away into nothingness.

He tries not to think of those nightmares when he’s awake, puts on that typical playboy smile that has always managed to fool Lara and his other sisters for so many years. _The prodigal son_ , they call him. And he nods and smiles and seemingly accepts that, after the unthinkable torture, he has returned to who he truly should be.

Only _she_  recognizes the growing emptiness inside of him.

But _she_  isn’t in this dream tonight – and it has been so long since he can even recall having a pleasant dream with her smile and her kindness without it being ripped to shreds by the Skinwalker – and when he walks into the library of his family’s mansion, he is surprised to find that he’s not the only occupant in the room. He swears that this can only be a dream (even though he doesn’t recall falling asleep) as the young woman lifts her head to blink at him from the large chair she has settled into.

She is extraordinarily pretty if not quite beautiful and something about her reminds Thomas of a mouse - tiny and easily frightened by the slightest movement from something even remotely larger than she. Her gray silk dress with embroidered blue and red flowers is also very strange and out-of-place in the library, an outfit that would be more suited for Marie Antoinette than anyone now living. Despite the poise that her dress demands of her, her fingers flutter nervously over her bodice and her skirt as if they didn’t quite know where to land.

“I didn’t suppose you’d be able to see me,” the girl says, finally stilling her hands on her lap. She speaks with an odd French-tinted British accent, as if she really is a transplant from a different age. She stands up, her skirts rustling and her hands folded in front of her tiny waist, and Thomas is again struck by something _odd_  about her, as if she’s surrounded by a strange aura. “We’re worried about you. You’ve been hurt.”

Thomas knows this is a dream then. He can count on one hand how many people in this world truly worry about him, and this strange girl is not one of them. He narrows his eyes. “You’d be one of the few.” He doesn’t stop to wonder why the girl is speaking in the plural or the fact that she seems to know about those few days of torment so many months ago.

The girl looks pained for a moment and she lifts her hands slightly, her fingers curling into fists at her sides. “It was never supposed to be like this. It’s not the way _we_  wanted things to be.” She looks down at her hands then and shakes her head – again, there’s that unsettling feeling of familiarity about her. It’s that hesitation, the display of weakness, that awakens his Hunger and even though he _knows_  this is a dream (it must be a dream), he can’t help but feel the very real pull of his demon’s longing.

 _Let us touch this_.

After a moment of briefly trying to rein in the Hunger (remnants from his days of living with Harry and who had he been trying to fool?), the demon eagerly ghosts across the girl, feral curiosity skimming over skin and fabric – and feels nothing. No desires, no whirlwind of thought – nothing except the ash of memories long gone, cold and desolate and _not there_.

For the first time since he entered the room, Thomas feels a twinge of uncertainty and caution. The Hunger is confused and tries again – but to no avail. It’s as if the girl isn’t even there.

The girl shifts her weight, as if she felt the rush of heat that usually accompanies the Hunger glide over her skin but she shows no outward signs that she is affected by it. She takes a step towards Thomas who goes completely still, a natural reflex to an impending attack - conserve your energy, wait until the predator pounces, fight back, survive. The girl’s eyes widen as if she realizes her mistake and she moves back again, shaking her head in apology. “I-I apologize. I did not mean to upset you. I only wanted to...” She lifts her eyes again. “I haven’t introduced myself.”

He hears her name. He _knows_ that name.

_This isn’t real._

“I know what it’s like to be scared.”

 _You have no idea. You have no fucking clue_.

“We want to help you.”

 _Liar. You can’t help the thrice damned._ “Stop.”

She looks surprised, opens her mouth to say more.

He turns on his heel and leaves.

He can’t remember if he wakes up.

oOo

The next night, during the middle of a typical Midwestern blizzard that has crippled the city, he finds someone sitting in the passenger seat of his car and he realizes with alarm and annoyance that it’s not a dream.

The apparition of a man is almost a decade younger than him by the looks of it, the set of his shoulders arrogant and his lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval. Despite his apparent youth, he is dressed from a noble era at least one hundred years before his first (and what he had hoped was his last) visitor. He drums his fingers against the dashboard, clashing with the rhythm of the ballad coming from the speakers. His eyes remain fixed firmly ahead and even when Thomas gives him a glare that is less of an invitation and more of a threat to leave, he ignores it.

“I cannot abide storms.”

Thomas stops the car, his hands clenching around the steering wheel. The back end fishtails slightly in the unplowed street and then comes to a slow stop, snow crunching loudly beneath the tires. Ahead, snow washes out the street in a blinding rush of white and ice. The engine growls plaintively; Sarah Vaughan croons. He says nothing, thinking that perhaps if he remains obstinate, the stranger who wears familiar lines in his face will go away. He doesn’t like to think that the Skinwalker, even months later, has completely stolen every form of lucid thought he could pull together.

 _Empty night, I’m not crazy_.

“Stubbornness,” the passenger says in a faded Dutch accent, “is a running trait within our family. And a penchant for dying, unfortunately.”

“Go away.”

“You think us illusions, signs of insanity.” The passenger never looks at him. Thomas’s grip on the wheel becomes white-knuckled, and he clinches a jaw around a curse. He doesn’t want this - he doesn’t _need_  this. “We have a complex, you know, about saving people, saving our family. It never goes away.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“No?” The man’s lips curl into a smile that is neither friendly nor cold - it doesn’t look right on him. “We know about your brother, the wizard. We know about what Lara has done to you. We know the sacrifices you’ve made, the torment you’ve gone through, the nightmares you’ve had.” He pauses, unaffected by the growing tension set in Thomas’s shoulders. “We know about Justine.”

He doesn’t want to hear this.

“We see that she worries about you too.” He feels the passenger - this stranger, his brother - turn to look at him and the Hunger growls in frustration at being unable to feel a thing from this ghost, this spook. “You’ve become distant. She wants to help you.”

“She can’t help me,” he mutters through gritted teeth. “Get out of my goddamn car.” He doesn’t know why they are so easily able to slip under each layer of the masks he wears, getting under his skin and igniting his temper and drowning him in despair and loneliness and loss. He must be losing his mind. With some difficulty, he places some semblance of that come-what-may attitude around him like a protective cloak, hopes it’s enough to make a point. “Besides, don’t you have some grave to haunt?”

The passenger continues to look at him, patient as all seven hells and unwavering. “I’ve been dead some four hundred years, little brother. I’ve been condemned to travel the seven seas for all eternity on a ghost ship because I was foolhardy enough to try and save a sibling. I am never going to find rest and I am tormented by the fact that I could not save my little sister.” He pauses and Thomas, out of the corner of his eye, sees something flicker across his expression. “And what _I_  feel is a fraction of the guilt in your heart.”

Thomas closes his eyes.

“You keep asking yourself what you could have done to save any of those poor girls.”

He doesn’t care about the goddamn blizzard anymore. He jumps out into the storm, leaving the car parked along the street, and trudges back to the apartment.

The ghost doesn’t follow.

There’s a young girl in the lobby when he arrives; she’s just broken up with her boyfriend. Thomas thinks he’s seen the buck before, a tenant a few floors down from him. She’s still young enough to believe in romance and true love and happy endings, wants someone to sweep her off her feet.

 _Make this go away_.

He smiles at her and the demon lures her in.

oOo

The ghost falls in step with him.

Thomas comes to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. A lady who was walking behind him nearly collides into him, but whatever cursing retort she would have spat out dies once she gets a good look at Thomas’s face. His demon notices her dilated pupils, her increased heartbeat, the sudden shortness of breath. It wants to grab her, pull her into a dark alley, take her right there as she whimpers and begs for more. But Thomas doesn’t follow through, can’t bring himself to go after the doe who eventually is able to put enough thought together to hurry away. He watches her go, coldness already settling into his heart.

“Empty night, what the hell do _you_  want?”

Passersby are few and far between in this street leading to Zero. It doesn’t matter - Thomas thinks he’s gradually losing his mind. A part of him is terrified that his sanity seems to be slipping away with each appearance of a long-dead sibling, another part relishes in the numbness that it might bring. He wants to fall away from the clinical, all-encompassing _white_  that has surrounded him now, glaring and powerful and anything but pure, and fall into the darkness where there is no guilt, where there is no pain.

“I wanted to meet you at least once.”

Thomas finally looks at the other man who, in death, has a pallid look to him. He doesn’t have the intense attractiveness of the other two nor the expensive finery. He’s tall but very thin, shadows in the hollows of his cheeks and under his eyes, blue as the heart of a fire. There’s something in the way he holds himself that reminds Thomas of Harry, and the thought scalds and burns with shame and he looks away before he can take in more of this dead brother.

“I saw you in a dream before I died. You’re more fortunate than you know.” There’s gentleness in his smile that Thomas has never associated with any of his siblings save for Natalia. For a moment, between this brother’s similarities to Harry and that smile, Thomas can feel his walls lower - but it’s only for a moment. He remembers what happened last night he had done so, those tortuous hours in the Skinwalker’s clutches, the months before nearly starving himself to be a “good” brother to Harry.

He scoffs. “You’ve been dead too long and don’t know what lucky even means.”

The ghost doesn’t frown at him or take offense at his words. In fact, his eyes only soften in pity which Thomas cannot stand. “You’ve Justine when many of us had no one. You’ve a brother willing to be patient with you, wanting to _be_  there for you.” His narrow face slackens in sadness. “What has happened to you is unforgivable, but there are those around you who don’t see a monster. They only see you - Thomas.”

_There is no ‘me’ without the monster. This is what I am. I’m made to hurt, to kill._

He remembers the third girl, bright-eyed and sweet and barely out of high school. She had screamed and begged for her life, but he had measured her life against his and the Hunger had already clouded his thoughts with need and desire and what she wanted had never even mattered. Her screams of terror had eventually faded into cries of pleasure and she had died with a strange light in her eyes and a smile on her lips, but none of it had been real.

“They only see me?” His voice is bitter, strangled. “What good am I?”

A moment of silence and uncertainty. Then there are hands on his shoulders. It’s the first time any of the ghosts have touched him. There’s no coldness, only a strange weight that isn’t quite solid nor quite real. He nearly shrugs off the touch. “You can’t stand here and tell me about the goodness in my heart and whatever humanity thinks lies in me. I’m nothing more than a walking cage for a demon.”

The third girl had whispered please please please over and over again and it’s her voice he still hears in his head, threaded through with her screams. He can feel the madness from those hours gradually burn at the edge of his thoughts. He pulls away.

The ghost’s smile is strangely somber. “You’re a good man, Thomas. Better than what you think or what you know. You _must_  remember that.”

Nearby, a crow caws as the winter night falls.

oOo

“Thomas.”

He stops, still as a statue. He had known she was here, hadn’t he? He could have taken any other route in the sprawling mansion, avoided her as he’s done for months. He doesn’t want to see the pity or the love in her lovely dark eyes - she deserves so much better than him. How much of her life is she going to waste on a monster like him?

“Thomas, are you-?”

“I’m fine.” He smells her perfume - she’s only a few feet away. Strawberries and vanilla and something else that was intrinsically _her_. He wants to turn away, to hold her close and kiss her and keep her as near to him as possible.

 _And hurt her. Kill her. Another corpse on your conscience_.

He keeps his back to her.

“You’ve been so distant lately.” She keeps her voice very low. There’s no one else in the house, but old habits die hard. He can hear the concern in her voice, the warmth that she can’t display in front of anyone else in the household. “I’m...I’m worried about you, love.”

Daggers in his heart.

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

 _I need you here with me_.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

 _I’m being haunted by my dead siblings_.

_Nothing is going to ever be right._

He walks away. He hears his name on her lips, but he doesn’t turn around.

oOo

She watches him from the landing. Her face is full of beautifully sharp angles and edges, her dark dress and cape highlighting her austere qualities. She is painted in black and white except for her eyes, a cool slate-blue that look down at him as he ascends the staircase to pass by her towards Lara’s office. He brushes by past, feels a cold chill that had not been with the others, but ignores her. He doesn’t bother asking her what in the world she could possibly want. She’ll speak soon enough.

And she does. Her tone is clipped, British vowels and Italian consonants abruptly colliding. “She’s the one you have to be wary of.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

The ghost follows him - she’s tall enough where just a few of her strides brings her alongside Thomas. She keeps her chin raised haughtily, her hands folded into the sleeves of her coat. “We know she’s broken you. She keeps you as her little pet now, just like she did with all of us. Don’t be fooled, Thomas.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person if you think I’m blind enough to think Lara has my best interests in mind.”

His ghostly sister narrows her eyes at him, black brows knitting over luminous eyes. “I never said you were so foolish. But the mistakes we made cannot be repeated by you because you wallow in fear and denial and guilt.” She steps in front of him to block is path - sheer reflex makes him stop. “We _do_  worry about you, but I’m concerned with something else.”

“I don’t care what you think.” _What do any of you know?_

“You cannot be passive with her. You lost a battle. That doesn’t mean you truly lost yourself in the process. The war is far from over.”

Thomas scowls at her and walks through her, banishing the image of the black and white ghost from his mind. “What do you know of wars? Why do you all keep coming here anyway? The last thing I need are Raith guardian angels trying to stab me in the back.”

She reappears next to him, glimpse of alabaster skin and black wool. “I’ve met angels worse than us. I am only telling you not to fall so deep down into your anguish that you will never have the strength to climb out of it. It would be embarrassing for all of us.”

He waves her way and she vanishes as he enters into Lara’s office.

oOo

“You’re the only ghost I know who would show up to a bar.”

The young man sitting next to him, his bowler hat askew to reveal a tangle of wavy hair beneath, snorts and downs a shot. “I didn’t know you were acquainted with that many ghosts.”

Thomas ignores the handful of sidelong looks he’s getting. This time of night, most of the bar’s patrons have already delved deep into their cups and it’s not like anyone other than the bartender is going to be overly concerned with him apparently speaking to himself. There are others worse off than he is.

“I’m being haunted by my dead siblings. I figured the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future might show up any day now too.” He swirls the scotch, golden and toxic, in his glass. He hasn’t consumed enough to lull the demon into silence. Already, the Hunger is prowling around the room, looking for some poor buck or doe to hunt that night. Thomas lets the demon continue its work while he concentrates on more important things, like drinking himself into a stupor.

“Dickens. Lovely fellow, I've heard. Can’t say I was a fan of him myself - chap’s novels were a bit too optimistic for my tastes.”

Thomas thinks that it says something about his life when he can say that chatting in a bar with his dead brother from the Edwardian age over the novels of Charles Dickens is not the strangest thing he’s done. He signals the bartender, orders another scotch. “So what words of advice are you here to give me?” He can’t quite dismiss the annoyed, angry tone of his voice. Has he fallen so far into regret and self-hatred that even his ghostly siblings are concerned about him?

His brother shrugs. “None in particular. I just assumed you’d be a good drinking companion. Nothing says drowning your sorrows like a good bottle of scotch with a ghost.”

Thomas snorts. “You’re not worried about me?”

“You’re a good lad. I’m sure you’ll find the strength to beat back your demons given time.” He lifts his glass and nods his head towards Thomas in a faintly ironic show of camaraderie. “Besides, I can’t say that I’m much good at reassuring people. My answer is that if they’re still feeling down, they’re drinking the wrong sort of brandy. Cheers.”

The scotch burns on the way down and the world becomes a little more fuzzy at the edges.

“Cheers.”

  
oOo

He wakes shivering and sweating from a night terror brought on by the burn of alcohol to see a pretty young woman sitting on the edge of his bed, her hand hovering above his head as if she had been trying to soothe him. In the darkness and the fleeting shadows of the dream, she looks like Inari and it is only that moment of confusion that keeps the gun he places under her pillow from whipping towards her face.

He glowers at her, swatting her hand away and climbing out of bed on the opposite side. She stands too, soft concern on her lovely, girlish features. She looks like a typical southern belle in the elaborate pale green dress, dark curls falling over her bare shoulders. He can’t put a name to this sibling and only flicks on the lights, hoping that this ghost that has somehow found her way past the threshold will vanish.

She smiles at him and, for some reason that he can’t place his finger on, even the Hunger is briefly cowed into quietness.

“You’re like me,” she murmurs in a sweet southern drawl, one hand reaching up to touch the dainty silver locket lying in the hollow of her throat. "More than any of the others."

There is something about her, innocence backed by a will made of iron, that makes him hesitate for a moment with the need to listen to her. But the moment is gone soon after, fed to his demon, and he walks away from her. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts. “I don’t know how you got over the threshold, but I’m sick of you all bothering me.” He reaches for the door of his bedroom, but stops. He looks back over his shoulder and sees the ghost standing only a few feet behind him, an unreadable emotion on her face.

“I’ve always wanted to talk to you, Thomas,” she murmurs, fingers still gently toying with her necklace, the silver chain glinting in the light of the room. “You don’t know- you don’t know how _happy_  I was to see one of my siblings fall in love. I have wished you all the happiness in the world for so many years. I’ve never been so proud of one of my siblings as I am of you.”

Her eyes are bright with tears as she reaches for his hands and clasps them in hers. Thomas finds that he can’t pull himself away. He avoids her gaze, looking instead to some place just past her shoulder. “You don’t know me. You’re sick in the head if you’re proud of what I’ve become.”

 _Just leave me be. Stop trying to fix things - stop trying to fix_  me.

The girl reaches up to touch his cheek - her touch is cool and gentle. “Darling, I _am_  proud of you. Don’t ever think that our sins wash away the goodness inside of our hearts.” She smiles. “She wouldn’t love you if there nothing _to_  love. She’s not wasting her years on you, no matter what you think. Don’t you know you saved her life?”

He feels sick, looks away. “I almost killed her. Just like all of those girls...don’t try to make me into some sort of martyr. Don’t make me into something I’m not.”

“No.” There’s a tremulous note to her voice now, and the grip on his hand tightens. “It’s not your fault. Whatever you must believe, believe that.”

“I should’ve been stronger.” He barks out a harsh laugh, self-loathing and despair clawing at his thoughts, his heart. _How can I be_  anything _to Justine or to Harry?_  His throat tightens and he wants to angrily push her away, but the guilt and shame of months lay heavy on his shoulders. He only shakes his head, lost and alone and so goddamn tired. He gestures futilely. “Look at me. I tried to be more than...more than this. But I fucking failed.”

“Thomas-”

“Don’t you dare stand here and tell me that it’s going to be alright, that I’m better than this.” There’s heat to his voice now, trying to escape the darkness that is threatening to strangle him. He glares down at this girl who looks like his adored little sister, spitting out the words as if he can’t get rid of them fast enough. “I’m not going to be better than this. Empty night, you’re a Raith. You _know_  we’re monsters. I’m not going to be worthy of them and it’s _never_  going to be okay.”

She stares at him and he can see in her eyes the moment her heart breaks.

“Oh no. Oh sweetheart, _no_.”

Until that night, he has never been embraced by a ghost. But his sister fiercely pulls him into her arms and he can feel cool tears dampen his neck, whispers of apology for things that could never have been prevented buried in his shoulder. He finds that somewhere along the way he’s begun to cling to her as if she’s some sort of anchor to reality, a relief to the pressure of remorse that has been crushing him for so long. He listens in silence as she murmurs, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over again into the darkness of the night.

He doesn’t even know her name.

When he wakes in the morning, his thoughts and memories muddled from the night, the only remaining sign of her presence is the fleeting scent of sun-warmed peaches and antebellum summers.

oOo

There’s something peculiar about the last of them.

He has the whiplash thinness of youth that has not quite readjusted itself into the lean muscle of young manhood. And he’s dressed in clothing that would not be out of place at some Renaissance festival – a chemise and jerkin and hose, all in various shades of blue, barely visible beneath a heavy woolen cloak. He has the promise of extreme attractiveness and when he looks up at Thomas with a curious squint, Thomas can see that his eyes are a disturbingly familiar shade of blue and far too old and knowledgeable for a face that young.

“Hello, brother.”

Thomas is tired of all of this now. He has come to accept that he is indeed being haunted by his siblings, but he can find no rest or solace in their words of warning or the kindness that some of them offered. He slowly sinks into the couch in his living room, exhaustion from the Hunger and the hauntings and his remorse and his exile from Justine and Harry finally making him too weary to even argue.

“Say what you have to and get out.”

The boy with the ancient eyes has no flicker of expression across his face. Instead, he quietly asks, “Do you know why we’ve done what we’ve done?”

“You’re worried about me,” Thomas recites, too tired to feel resentful or angry. “You want me to be scared of Lara. You want me to drink more. You want me to do better.” He narrows his eyes at the ghost who seems far older than any of the other siblings who’ve visited and pestered him within the past week. “And you know it’s getting a bit _old_  to be getting these lessons every which way I turn.”

The boy nods thoughtfully as if he had expected this answer. Thomas sits back into the couch with a tired sigh. Even with the Hunger fed so thoroughly nowadays, he will never shake the feeling of emptiness that follows him around like an old friend. He’s tired. He wants the ghosts to stop, wants to stop feeling guilty for just _being_. Even the numbness of alcohol dissolves by morning light.

 _You can wish all you want. It doesn’t change things_.

“Do you know who I am?”

Thomas looks up, squints at him. He shakes his head with a shrug. “A dead brother.” _Another in the long line of dead siblings_...

“My name is Tristan. I’m your eldest brother.”

Not just older. Eldest. Thomas stares.

“I won’t pretend to know who you are,” Tristan says calmly, eyes never wavering from Thomas’s face to the the point that even he looks away, unnerved. Tristan’s voice is gentle, tinged with a rare kindness and understanding that all of the others lacked. “But over the centuries, I’ve watched one brother and sister after another grow up into different customs and societies and eras. What the others have told you - they all speak from the experiences that eventually led them to fall. They warn you because they feel, in their hearts, that it is the right thing to do. Because I was the first to die, I’d like to think I have a better understanding of your hearts’ than anyone else does...except for, of course, you.”

Thomas’s hands clench into fists. “Raiths care nothing about hearts except how to manipulate them.”

Tristan looks thoughtful. “Is that you would say of Natalia? Of Charlotte and Victor? Of Victoria?”

“Empty night, you don’t _get_ it.” Thomas shakes his head, pulls away from the affable kindness in Tristan’s words. “At the end of the day, even if we’ve done every human thing in the world, we’re still us. That’s never going to change. We’re still predators. Showing kindness is a weakness. Showing any sort of humanity is...” _It’s a weakness. It’s all a weakness, a disease. It eats you from the inside you, leaves you weak at the core, and when something vicious comes along, it tears you apart. Leaves you in pieces._

He’s aware of Tristan still watching him with that too wise gaze and he leans forward, resting his knees on his elbows. “Listen. I don’t need your help. I don’t need you all to guide me through this.” _Because you don’t know Harry. You don’t know Justine._  “Haven’t any of you thought that maybe with me like this, it’s better this way? That maybe if I stay away from certain people, they’ll be happier?”

Tristan tilts his head to the side, angles of sadness and disbelief etched in bas relief. “Do you really believe that?”

Suffocating darkness. Thomas bows his head.

“I have to.”

His brother falls into a pensive silence. Thomas doesn’t break it with a single word. For several moments, there is only the sound of the wind, snow falling on the eve of Christmas and turning the world outside into a tundra of infinite gray waters and white skies. There’s a peacefulness to the outside world that he wants within himself, but come night he knows that whatever peace he may have found will be shattered by memories and nightmares with a terror thick enough to choke.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and doesn’t look up.

“No.” A brief squeeze, warm and oddly solid. “No, you don’t.”

And then the room is empty, the memory of a ghost vanishing as quickly as it had come.


End file.
